American Contract Law for a Global Age, 2017a

He further answered, that it was given for no consideration, because his said
wife, Theresa, at the time she made the will mentioned, and at the time of her death,
owned, neither separately, nor jointly with her husband, or any one else (except so
far as the law gave her an interest in her husband’s property), any property, real or
personal, &c.
The will is copied into the record, but need not be into this opinion.
The Court sustained a demurrer to these answers, evidently on the ground that
they were regarded as contradicting the instrument sued on, which particularly set
out the considerations upon which it was executed. But the instrument is latently
ambiguous on this point.
The case turned below, and must turn here, upon the question whether the
instrument sued on does express a consideration sufficient to give it legal obligation,
as against Zacharias Schnell. It specifies three distinct considerations for his promise
to pay $600:
1. A promise, on the part of the plaintiffs, to pay him one cent.
2. The love and affection he bore his deceased wife, and the fact that she had
done her part, as his wife, in the acquisition of property.
3. The fact that she had expressed her desire, in the form of an inoperative will,
that the persons named therein should have the sums of money specified.
The consideration of one cent will not support the promise of Schnell. It is true,
that as a general proposition, inadequacy of consideration will not vitiate an
agreement. Baker v. Roberts, 14 Ind. 457 (1860). But this doctrine does not apply to
a mere exchange of sums of money, of coin, whose value is exactly fixed, but to the
exchange of something of, in itself, indeterminate value, for money, or, perhaps, for
some other thing of indeterminate value. In this case, had the one cent mentioned,
been some particular one cent, a family piece, or ancient, remarkable coin, possessing
an indeterminate value, extrinsic from its simple money value, a different view might
be taken. As it is, the mere promise to pay six hundred dollars for one cent, even had
the portion of that cent due from the plaintiff been tendered, is an unconscionable
contract, void, at first blush, upon its face, if it be regarded as an earnest one.
Hardesty v. Smith, 3 Ind. 39 (1851). The consideration of one cent is, plainly, in this
case, merely nominal, and intended to be so. As the will and testament of Schnell’s
wife imposed no legal obligation upon him to discharge her bequests out of his
property, and as she had none of her own, his promise to discharge them was not
legally binding upon him, on that ground. A moral consideration, only, will not
support a promise.
And for the same reason, a valid consideration for his promise can not be found
in the fact of a compromise of a disputed claim; for where such claim is legally
groundless, a promise upon a compromise of it, or of a suit upon it, is not legally
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124 CHAPTER III: CONSIDERATION